Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  He stopped reciting, but she continued to read to the end: A time to love, a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace. "Today, my husband took our third-born son to register for the draft. Our two oldest boys already are over there. How much is enough, Reverend?"

  "It would be easier to take, would it not, Mrs. McGinnis, if we were full citizens in this nation? If by fighting and dying our men were securing our full participation in the democracy they're fighting and dying to preserve? No mother wants to lose a son—or two or three—but she wants even less for those sons to return home alive only to be lynched in their hometowns for daring to wear the uniform of their service branch." He turned the little black book over and over in his hands. "That was my eldest brother's fate upon his return from The Great War. My mother went to her grave wishing he'd died in France."

  "Yet you still believe in their God." She could not conceal her bitterness.

  "I believe in my God, Mrs. McGinnis," he said and smiled gently at the look on her face. "They're not the only ones free to interpret scripture to suit their needs. We only have two cheeks, and after they've both been slapped—a time to keep silence and a time to speak—so says the Bible. And my interpretation is that we are duty-bound, obligated even, to speak out against injustice. We can use the Bible against them just as they use it against us. And nowhere in there does it say we have to keep turning the same two cheeks to be slapped over and over again. I don't know exactly how much is enough, but I do know there is such a thing as enough."

  She got to her feet. She was warm now and strangely relaxed, comforted. "How long has this church been here?"

  "In this location since 1933, but the congregation was born in 1880." He walked with her to the front door. "You'd be most welcome to visit us, either on Sunday morning or at one of our Saturday night socials." In the vestibule, just before he opened the door, he reached into a basket and withdrew a brochure. "Our Church Bulletin for the month."

  She folded it, put it in her pocket, then extended her hand. "I feel better leaving than I did when I came in. It's something I'd been intending to do ever since you gave the BCCCTC permission to use your parking lot. I'm sorry it's taken me so long."

  He took her hand but transferred it to his left hand. With his right hand he made the sign of the cross over her: "May the blessing of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be upon you now and forever. Amen."

  Ruth thanked him for the blessing and hurried down the walkway, not to get away from him but to get home as quickly as possible, for she found that she very much wished to be there with Mack and Thatcher and Jack and Nellie. She listened carefully to what Mack and Thatch said about their experience at the draft board and understood that her son would be called up in the very near future, and that he almost certainly would be sent to do his basic training in Tuskegee, then on to Michigan for more training before being sent to the Front. She learned that basic training could last as long as four months and as little as three, depending on the need for additional troops, and that men who trained together most likely would serve together, just as Mackie and Wilton had remained in the same unit. She hugged her son, kissed him and told him how much she loved him.

  "I'll be fine, Ma. Honest I will. I will take care of myself. I'll be careful."

  "I know you will, Son," she said, holding him tightly, then releasing him.

  "I'm kinda hungry," he said.

  "Sadie made soup and baked some bread."

  They watched him head for the kitchen, and when he was out of sight and earshot, Ruthie leaned into her husband and wept. He held her tightly with one arm while he dug in his pocket for his handkerchief with the other. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and told him about her two visits that day. He wanted to call Pa and Beau right away to tell them about Si and Catherine. They'd already decided not to tell Pa about registering Thatch for the draft. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but Big Silas Thatcher was not in the best health. Just shy of seventy, he didn't hear or see well, and his heart was fragile. Any major news could prove disastrous—good or bad. But they agreed that they had to tell Beau about Thatch. He'd worry but he was the only one of them who could hear a radio broadcast or read a newspaper account of what was happening on the Front and know what it meant. He was the only one of them who could manage not to let his fear show.

  Then Ruthie told Mack about her conversation with the Episcopal priest—Bowers was his name; she finally remembered it—Richard Bowers. "Sounds like an interesting man," Mack said when she finished. "And a smart one."

  "I want to go to that church on Sunday," she said and froze at the look of horror on his face. Surely he didn't—couldn't, wouldn't—object to her attending service at another church…then she got it: His great-grandparents had been founding members of Friendship Baptist Church, and his family had belonged consistently since then. He probably was gauging the impact her decision would have on his parents. "I'll talk to Ma, Mack. I'm not defecting." At least not yet, she thought.

  Clara McGinnis not only understood why Ruthie believed it was a good idea for her to attended a service at St. Paul's Episcopal—out of respect and gratitude for that church's participation in the transportation committee effort, Ruthie had said—but Clara said that perhaps she and some of the Ladies Auxiliary might attend some Sunday too. She drew the line, however, at Mack and the children attending, so Ruthie went alone, a situation she much preferred under the circumstances: She very much wanted to explore and learn more about the Episcopal Church and its teachings, and she'd do that better on her own, not having to talk or explain or justify or share.

  The day was cold and clear, and after the service Richard Bowers stood in the door of the church greeting his parishioners. His eyes lit up when he saw Ruth, but before either of them could speak, however, Ruthie heard her name called.

  "Dr. McGinnis. What a pleasant surprise to see you here."

  The greeting came from a woman who'd already descended the church steps to the walkway but who now returned to the steps. Ruth recognized her as a faculty member in the Fine Arts Department but didn't really know her except to say hello. Not being a full-time faculty member, Ruth only knew most of the faculty casually; those in Foreign Languages she knew better.

  "Doctor McGinnis?" Reverend Bowers said, taken aback. "And here I've been calling you Mrs. McGinnis. I do apologize."

  "No need for it. I am Mrs. McGinnis and have been since I was sixteen."

  "You two are acquainted, Dr. Foster, you and Dr. McGinnis?"

  "Dr. McGinnis is part-time on the French faculty, though we have tried—so far unsuccessfully—to convince her to join us on a full-time basis," Frances Foster said; that was her name, Ruthie remembered, and she taught English literature.

  "I may finally be ready to be convinced," Ruthie said, surprising herself as she expressed verbally what she'd not even allowed herself to fully think. "My children are all practically grown up—even my babies. I don't think I'll be missed at home if I go to work full-time now."

  Given the fact that Episcopal Church services were shorter than Baptist ones, she was home well ahead of Mack and the children, and she reveled in the quiet time alone. Dinner was ready and waiting, so she had nothing to do but think—about the service and about her verbalized admission that she was considering teaching full-time. She lit the fire that Mack had laid before they left, then went upstairs to change her clothes; they wouldn't be going out again today, not even to have dinner at Big Mack and Clara's as they usually did on Sunday. Jack and Nellie returned to school the following day after the Christmas holiday, Mack was half-expected in Carrie's Crossing to help Audrey Thatcher open her decorating business, and Ruthie wanted to be on hand in case Thatcher needed her. He'd already decided there was no point in his registering for Winter semester classes, and Ruthie knew he'd be at loose ends, not certain what to do with himself while waiting for the Army to send for him.

  The fire was roaring when she got back downstairs, and she happily settled
herself on the sofa beside the pile of books, newspapers and magazines waiting to be read, but as she lifted her feet onto the hassock, she knew she wouldn't read. Her eyes closed and almost immediately she fell asleep. It was a wonderful, deep, peaceful sleep that she didn't awaken from until the slamming of the kitchen door and Jack's running feet announced the return of her family. They all were ready to eat, and by the time they were changed, she had the food on the table, and while they ate, she answered their questions about the service she'd attended, and then told them, when they asked, why she went.

  "He said that, the Reverend?" Thatcher exclaimed when Ruth repeated what Richard Bowers said about speaking out against injustice and using the Bible as a tool. The children were awed, especially when they elicited agreement with the sentiment of both parents.

  "I wonder if he ever gets scared," Nellie said in a quiet voice. As it hadn't been a question, nobody tried to answer, though both of her parents wished for some appropriate response. The telephone rang, and Thatcher ran for it; every sound now meant the Army was sending for him. They heard him answer, heard him say, 'yes, sir' and saw by his face when he returned that he still was safe—for a while.

  "Mr. Atkinson wants you, Pa," he said.

  Mack had been expecting Jonas Thatcher and frowned slightly as he went to the telephone. Charlie Atkinson was the large general contractor he'd brought on to help him build Grady Allen's Carrie's Crossing bank. "Happy New Year, Charlie," he said, and listened for just a few seconds when he exclaimed, "You'd better believe it. Just tell me when and where." He took the pad and pencil from the telephone table drawer, wrote an address and directions, said thank you, and all but ran back into the living room. "Charlie's hiring me as his principal sub-contractor on a job big enough for me to put all my guys to work for the next ten to twelve weeks. Looks like 1944 is getting off to a pretty good start."

  They were less enthusiastic about President Roosevelt's take on things in his State of the Union speech delivered the following day in the form of one of his Fireside Chats. He had not gone to Capitol Hill to deliver the speech to Congress as usual because he had the flu. So did both of Mack's parents, and all three of them sounded weak and tired. The President called for a continuation of National Service—the employment of civilian war workers. "It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war where national service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that this is not true...The national war program calls for the employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943." He also called for what he termed "a new Bill of Rights," the details of which lent themselves to much heated discussion, though there was almost universal agreement that none of the factory and munitions plant jobs would be available to Negroes. "No matter what they call a thing," Big Mack McGinnis said, "if it's got something good to it, we'll never see it, feel it, taste it, or know it."

  "But he's keeping them in line, too," his wife argued. She was a bigger fan of the President than her husband. "You heard what he said about putting a stop to those people trying to make a dollar off the war. He called 'em selfish."

  "I heard what he said, Clara," Big Mack snapped. "I also know exactly who'll get a job at those war factories and who won't. I also know that no Colored people are makin' a dime off this war, so I don't care 'bout his Bill of Rights, old or new."

  The words of the President that resonated for Ruth had to do with his suggestion that the end was near: "We are going forward on a long, rough road—and in all journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final effort—for the total defeat of our enemies—that we must mobilize our total resources." To Ruth's ears, Roosevelt was saying the war was almost over. To Mack's ears, the President was wishing, hoping and praying that the war was almost over, like every other sane person in the world.

  "If it lasts more than another year—"

  "You don't have to say it, Ruthie; I know it just like you do."

  What they both knew—and feared—was that if the war still raged in July of 1945, they'd have to register their youngest son for the draft. Most immediately, however, was the notice that Thatcher received ordering him to report to his induction center on the last day of February. The entire family gathered the night before to embrace the young man and to wish him well, a gathering diminished by the absence of Beau and Big Si—they still hadn't told the old man that his third grandson was heading off to war—but a gathering enhanced by the presence of Little Si, who'd come from Chicago to collect his wife. There was true joy at seeing him, and for the two of them. Catherine would be deeply missed, but all agreed that she belonged in Chicago with her husband.

  Ruthie and Si had a few moments together, just the two of them, and for most of that time they simply held each other. Words were not necessary. They were, they knew, thinking and feeling the same things: Past memories, joyful and sad, and funny. Both remembered when their elder brothers, Beau and Eubie, were readying to go off to that other World War and the discussion they'd had with Jonas Thatcher, whose older brother also was heading off to war: Jonas's family having a celebration dinner; Ruth and Si's family not considering it a celebration. More than twenty-five years later, they still didn't.

  "How sick is Pa, Ruthie? Please tell me the truth," Little Si said.

  "It's not that he's so terribly sick, Si, but where he lives, there's no doctor up that mountain, and no Negro doctor at all for miles. His heart is weak, no arguing that fact, but if we can keep him from experiencing too much emotion, well, then, all the better."

  "When I called him to tell him about Catherine and me, he cried, and that really scared me."

  It scared Ruth, too, just thinking about it, so she banished the thought, something she got more proficient at every day, being able to not think about a person or a situation, especially painful or disturbing ones. Like where Mackie and Wilton were at any given moment. Like where Thatcher would be in three months after his basic training.

  "Do you really like Chicago, Si? Really and truly?"

  "I really and truly do. Even the winters. Remember that blizzard—"

  "In the Crossing, the first year Mack and I were married."

  "We walked to Jonas's Pa's store, Mack and me. Well, that's what winter is like in Chicago all the time. But when you've got the right clothes and shoes—and you've only got to walk a block or two—it's really not so bad. And I've met some wonderful people, people you'd enjoy, people who've been to Europe and Africa. Some of them, of course, are a bit arrogant, and when they find out I'm from Georgia, well, let's just say I've had to shatter a few pre-conceived notions about me and my family. I love telling them about my baby sister with the Ph.D. in French and five children who're fluent in French."

  "You don't tell people that," Ruthie exclaimed in mock horror.

  "Indeed I do, Baby Sister," Si said.

  Everybody went to the train station the following day to see Thatcher off to basic training in Alabama (and the platform was packed with young Negro men—boys, really—with the same destination) and, on an adjacent platform, to see Catherine and Si off to Chicago. Cat wept so hard she got the hiccups. Tears of joy, she kept saying, and her mother and sisters shared them with her. They hugged Si so hard he said he thought he heard a rib crack, and Miss Emma, Cat's ma, said she'd show him a cracked rib, and punched him in the belly. Cat promised to write everybody and to send lots of photographs. Thatch made a similar promise with the caveat that he couldn't start, however, before the end of March.

  Ruthie spent that next month struggling to occupy her mind during all those hours of the day she was alone, and on some evenings, after she'd done homework with Nellie and Jack and put them to bed, she was still alone; Mack often left at dawn and didn't return until nightfall. The daily walks helped less and less. The only times she was fully occupied was when she was talking with Father Bowers at St. Paul's and when she was teaching French at the YWCA, and she did neither thing every day, and she needed to. That's when she decided that as soon as there was a staff position availa
ble, she'd join the college faculty full-time, if they'd still have her.

  That's what she was thinking, wondering on the Friday as she was awaiting the BCCCTC cars from Carrie's Crossing in the St. Paul's parking lot. Suppose she'd waited too long to reach a decision? Maybe she could go back to Ashdale Elementary School where nobody would care about her Ph.D.

  "Miz McGinnis, Miz McGinnis. Oh, I'm so glad to see you."

  Ruthie brought her attention back to the parking lot and to the three people literally surrounding her, as if to prevent her escape. They were familiar, but she didn't really know them: Two women and a man. The man spoke.

  "I'm Sam Johnson. That's my wife, Ruby, and that there's Ernestine Smith. We work for Mr. Jonas Thatcher. I b'lieve he's a friend of yours and Mr. McGinnis?"

  "Yes, he is," Ruthie said, suddenly on guard. Something about how these three people were holding themselves—rigidly, tightly, as they were afraid they'd shatter.

  "He's in a bad way, Miz McGinnis. Real bad."

  "So bad he don't hardly talk to that sweet little boy a'tall, which just makes him cry and cry and cry, poor baby," Ernestine Smith said, weeping uncontrollably.

  Ruthie was thoroughly confused. "You're saying Jonas doesn't talk to his son?"

  "She don't know, y'all," Ruby Johnson said. "You don't know, do you, Miz McGinnis? 'Bout what happened to Miss Audrey and Baby Alice?"

  Ruth's stomach dropped, and she felt dizzy. She shook her head. "I don't know anything about Audrey and the baby. What about them?"